Friday, March 16, 2007

50 Shots; Black Man Dead

This has been disturbing from the first, when Sean Bell, a young man literally hours away from his wedding ceremony in November, was gunned down by five cops who for some reason thought he was something other than a young man leaving a strip joint with friends on the eve of his wedding.

Apparently three cops have been indicted on charges of manslaughter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/nyregion/17grand.html?hp

This won't be official until Monday. But officials -- elected and appointed and self-appointed --have been encourgaging US to be cool, to chill, to not go mau-mauing no matter what the results.

OK. But let's also put ourselves in the shoes of cops on the beat in a bad neighborhood trying to make the nabe safe for all of US. This is not an easy issue, is it?

1 comment:

West said...

It's gotta be tough on all sides, I agree, but I still feel more for Black males, like myself, who worry about an overreacting police officer.

Some civilians may have guns, but all cops do.